Dreaming of our yesterdays

Elsie Baker (1883-1971), contralto, was born the same year as my grandmother Ann Eliza Boyes Andrus Jensen; Baker lived just three years longer than my grandmother. During her career, Baker recorded hundreds of songs, performed in vaudeville and silent movies, was featured on the radio, and even had a string of Hollywood and TV roles.
When she recorded duets with Billy Murray she used the name Edna Brown.

As I was going through my music library last week, I came across the sheet music to a Baker classic with lyrics by Francis Blake and music by Herbert Leslie, recorded in 1919 called “Our Yesterdays,” which was a favorite of my grandmother. Often, Grandmother would invite family and friends into her home and for hours everyone would have a grand night of singing around the old piano. This song seemed to be among everyone’s favorites.

My mother’s sister, Thelma Lee Reeder, who lived in southwestern Idaho for a time, recalled how my grandparents were so welcoming, and how after a day of arduous labor on the farm, they experienced the greatest joys singing the “old songs.” Aunt Thelma would say, “I can still see Gram and Gramps sitting there in their chairs in front of the large picture window, with your mother playing the piano and the rest of us singing the melody in our loudest voices, and you could always find your father singing harmony like a lark in his incredible tenor voice.”

It was Aunt Thelma who shared with me the sheet music of “Our Yesterdays.” After she gave me a copy, I played the music on the piano a few times, but filed it away where it remained, almost forgotten, until this month when so many people I know graduated from mortality—some it seems, too young. I thought of cherished friendships, smiles exchanged, words of wisdom shared, hardships and heartbreaks. It was then the words of this song came to the forefront of my memory, flowing like cascading waters down an embracing precipice:

The world moves along with its sorrow and songs,

We live in a world of dreams,

The troubles we share, disappointments and care

But quickens the joy, it seems.

We list to the rhymes, at the thought of old times

That memory’s spell betrays,

And on her swift wings comes the maker of things,

The dream of our yesterdays.

It’s often the past that we love most at last,

Although it comes back through tears,

The pleasures of now, they are sweeter somehow

When seen through the glass of years.

The love-light of old, like a rainbow of gold,

A picture of youth portrays,

And like some sweet song we are drifted along,

To dream of our yesterdays.

An Elsie Baker recording of “Our Yesterdays” may be found at the following web address:

http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/7114

It is part of the National Jukebox project of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio and Visual Conservation. “The goal of the Jukebox is to present to the widest audience possible early commercial sound recordings, offering a broad range of historical and cultural documents as a contribution to education and lifelong learning.”

JJ Abernathy is an arts advocate and musician, and may be contacted at musictimes05
@gmail.com.